“Did you and your father otherwise get along?”

  Gwen pursed her lips. “If you’re asking was I ever the type to crawl on my daddy’s lap, the answer is a hard no. Neither of us have ever been emotional. We more or less tolerated each other because we once lived in the same house and shared DNA.”

  “Even when you were little?”

  “Matt Martin was never the cuddly type, unless you were a leggy coed with double Ds.”

  The malice in her clear green eyes sent a sharp chill through Ben. He was beginning to sense she had never been the cuddly type either, and maybe even displayed symptoms of an attachment disorder. Did Mia know of her daughter’s callousness, or did her own mental decline cause her to remain blissfully unaware?

  He clicked his pen several times. “Was he ever…inappropriate with you? Did he ever touch you in a non-parental way, or—”

  “I would’ve cut his balls off if he’d tried,” she stated in a nonchalant tone that sent a shiver down Ben’s back. “But I didn’t get the impression he was into that kind of kink.”

  “The sheriff’s report says you’re the one who found him on the floor in his office that night. Regardless of your strained relationship, that must’ve been hard.”

  With little effort, she lifted one shoulder. “It was whatever.”

  “You were still working when it happened?”

  “I was cleaning up outside at the same time the coroner's report said he died. You can check the perimeter surveillance videos—they’re time stamped. And I was working alongside Troy, one of the resort bartenders.”

  Ben made a note to review the tapes and talk to this Troy. “Your father never installed security cameras in his office?”

  “If he did, he kept them a secret so he could record himself getting it on with the staff. I think I was the only female waitress he hadn’t taken into his office to fool around with. It was disgusting.”

  Ben leaned back in the chair, studying her unyielding expression. “I’m starting to get the impression that you’re glad your father is gone, Gwen.”

  She reared her head back and released a hollow laugh. Then, with a smirk, her green eyes became bright and confident. “That’s funny, because I’m starting to get the impression you have a thing for my mom that goes beyond the scope of your job, Special Agent.”

  Liz came out of the house with the refreshments she’d promised. She set a plate of chocolate chip cookies and a pitcher of lemonade between them. “I just spoke with the administrator at St. Luke’s. Mia broke down in a session with her psychologist earlier today. She finally admitted she remembers every detail of the accident, and requested she be allowed to keep a picture of Gavin in her room.” She stood tall and flashed a hopeful smile. “It sounds as if she’s making real progress. They expect her to be released before long.”

  “That’s good,” Ben replied, his shoulders all at once relaxed. “I’ll need to interview her once she’s out.”

  “Is that necessary?” Liz asked with a slight scowl. “Just because she’s stable doesn’t mean she’s ready to discuss everything that has happened. Conversations about Matt and Nicole could trigger another episode.”

  “You can be present during the interview. If you suspect she’s getting stressed, you can let me know in a subtle way.”

  Liz eyed him wearily. “I’ll call you to set it up.”

  “Can I go now?” Gwen asked, pushing away from the table.

  “Where are you going?” Liz demanded.

  “Out.” Gwen shrugged as she walked into the house.

  Turning back to Ben, Liz clicked her tongue. “I know she must seem like a handful, but she’s good to her momma…at least for the most part.”

  “Her relationship with her father sounded especially rough.”

  “What can I say? She saw right through Matt for what he was before her mother did. Sometimes I think she’s smarter than all of us put together.”

  Watching Gwen march through the house, Ben absentmindedly clicked his pen.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Settled back against a cloth office chair, stained with age, Sheriff Perkins propped his scuffed work boots on the edge of a mahogany desk. Scattered papers and light green file folders covered every inch of the desk’s surface. On the cork-board lining the wall behind him, a jumbled mess of wanted fliers, office policies, and civil notices were tacked every which way—some upside down and some forming several layers. Food crumbs and empty paper coffee cups littered the credenza beneath. The faint odor of tobacco clung to every surface like it had decades to fester. A quarter-sized jelly stain occupied the collar of the sheriff’s white button-down, and his dark tie was askew.

  Ben had never witnessed so much chaos in an elected leader’s office. He imagined the sheriff’s secretary, a middle-aged woman who had greeted him with a bored expression, had attempted to keep the office clean for a time, then got tired of the pointless effort. It very well could’ve been one of the reasons Sheriff Perkins had never been married at 67.

  When the sheriff threw a frown Ben’s way, deep wrinkles lined his long face. “Why d’ya wanna see the resort’s old video tapes?”

  Ben leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “It’s important to rule him out in connection with the women’s deaths, Sheriff. From what I understand, he had an excessive amount of affairs over the years, and liked to fool around in his office.”

  The sheriff’s round face wrinkled. “You really think he killed those women, then offed himself in the same manner? Sounds downright impossible to me.”

  Ben’s gut instinct told him the sheriff didn’t have the basic skill-set needed to solve any crime, no matter how small. He struggled to understand why he’d so quickly concluded Mia must’ve been responsible for Matt’s death just minutes after his body was discovered. When his teeth gnashed together, he stopped to take a calming breath. “If he had anything to do with their deaths, it would provide someone with a pretty big motive to go after him.”

  The idea of Gwen wanting to punish her father flashed through Ben’s mind, but he quickly pushed it aside. Just as with Mia, Gwen didn’t have the physical strength required to kill her father. But it still didn’t mean she wasn’t somehow involved.

  “Seems to me yer graspin’ for straws that ain’t there, son.” The sheriff pulled his feet off the desk and stood. “Mia Martin is good for these murders. In due time, you’ll see I’m right.”

  Heat spread through Ben’s neck. “A personalized necklace left at the location of a victim’s last known whereabouts isn’t nearly enough to convict a woman of murder. It’s a coincidence that Mia’s son also died on Pelican’s Pass. She could’ve merely been paying her respects to his memory.”

  “A witness saw Mia threaten Nicole Tribeau the mornin’ she went missin’. And yer forgettin’ the accelerants we found in Mia’s studio that matched the one used on the victims. Don’t sound like no coincidence to me.”

  “Those accelerants are sold in every hardware store across the nation. Mia used them for her paintings. Besides, it seems more than likely the three murders were committed by the same person, and you don’t have anything tying Mia to Alyssa Scriber. Even if you think Mia had motive to kill her ex-husband solely based on his infidelities, it would be physically impossible for her to have killed him. The M.E.’s report stated Matt wasn’t incapacitated with chloroform or drugs, and not a single defensive wound could be found. His attacker had to have been a male over 5’10” with at least thirty pounds on him. The evidence rules Mia out. Matt Martin was killed by someone much bigger and stronger than his ex-wife.”

  The sheriff grunted. “Maybe she convinced her lover to do it. Either way, my senses tell me she was involved.”

  The implication of “Mia’s lover” being involved frayed Ben’s last nerve. Not because that was technically his title as of late, but because he’d never dealt with someone so unprofessional in his entire career with the bureau. He bolted to his feet. “A multiple homicide investigation needs to involve more than just your gut instincts, Sheriff. I strongly suggest we focus our efforts on someone other than Mia Martin, because she didn’t kill anyone.”

  “Don’t let that woman’s good looks fool ya,” the sheriff warned with a sharp, penetrating stare. He grabbed his hat off the corner of his desk and secured it with a sinister grin. “That one’s crazier than Charles Manson.”

  Ben spread the case files across the motel bed, once again reviewing the information gathered on Mia since he’d been called in to join the investigation. There had been very little signs of a struggle in Matt’s office, and the autopsy revealed he possessed a mere blood alcohol content of .04. Hardly enough to deem him too intoxicated to defend himself. Identical to Nicole and Alyssa’s murders, his official cause of death was ruled as a ligature strangulation, committed with a rope of the exact same width and fibers, removed from the scene of the crime.

  The possibility of other leads on Nicole’s murder were there, just under the surface. She had gained dozens of adversaries in her lifetime, and there was gossip that she’d been unfaithful a number of times. Over the years there had been plenty of documented arguments between her and her husband, Tom, one physical and one involving one of their adult sons after he’d been arrested for driving while intoxicated.

  Tom had the most plausible motive—especially if Matt had been sleeping with Nicole as Ben was beginning to suspect.

  The first time he’d reconnected with Tom, Ben had perceived him as holding a grudge against his wife. Tom was certain Nicole had been unfaithful and had run off with someone as the rumors suggested. Then Tom abruptly changed his mind and claimed she wouldn’t have taken off without retrieving any of her personal effects. Their sons Darrin and Erik had sat at the dining room table along with their father, both stone-faced. Whenever Ben had directed questions their way, their gazes had filled with the same degree of misplaced anger.

  He grabbed the file on the Tribeau family, flipping through their pictures and his notes. There was something particular about Darrin, the oldest. He’d graduated alongside Alyssa Scriber in a class of fifty-three students, yet claimed to know next to nothing about her. He came off as being more arrogant than his father, and bitter at the world.

  A brisk knock fell against the motel's door.

  “One second!” Ben called out. He gathered the files and stuffed them back inside the banker’s box. He couldn’t risk a maid seeing the contents that included graphic photographs of the charred victims.

  He peered through the peep hole to meet the shrewd, dark stare of his partner, Special Agent Eva Diaz. He felt a surge of relief as she stepped inside the room. There was very little that got past her keen sense of perception on a case.

  She was a good ten inches shorter than Ben with light brown Cuban skin. Her midnight black hair, as straight as silk, was secured in a smooth ponytail as always. An expression of self-assuredness fell over her exotically smooth features. Her work uniform consisted of white button-downs and dark designer pant suits with black sensible flats. She’d married a fellow agent five years prior, a noble man Ben had come to consider one of his only friends, and they’d miscarried half a dozen times before they decided kids were off the table. As far as Ben could tell, their two Australian Shepherds were more demanding than children.

  “I was sure I had taken a wrong turn,” she said with a breathy inhale, setting her carry-on down by the door. “Hard to believe there’s a thirty-five hundred acre lake buried amidst all this farmland.”

  Ben chuckled. “Welcome to Western Minnesota. You’ll find things are pretty laid back around here. It’s nothing like the big city.”

  “So I gathered. The woman at the front desk nearly wet herself when I showed her my badge—started asking all sorts of questions about D.C. and wondered if I’d met the president. I got the feeling she’s never left the state.” She flashed her perfectly straight teeth with a brief smile. “What do you have for me, big guy?”

  “At this point, a whole lotta nothing. The local sheriff is highly inexperienced and keeps relying on his ‘senses’ with these cases. He was still sheriff back when Patricia Foster and Terri Roberts went missing nearly two decades ago, and never found any evidence to indicate what had happened to them. Their demise remains unsolved, just like my friend that went missing when I lived here as a kid.”

  “Bella Hughes,” Eva confirmed, nodding. “I remember. She’s the reason you asked to be put on this case.”

  “It should also be noted that the sheriff’s character comes into question. When he first got out of the academy and became a deputy in Alabama, he’d been suspended for allegedly planting evidence.”

  “Sounds like a total shit show.” Eva muttered. She threw her coat jacket on the bed and smoothed her ponytail. “What about the murder victims?”

  Ben swiped the victims’ files from the box and placed them into her eager hands. “We’re looking at three. One twenty-year-old female, one forty-one-year-old female, and the most recent being a forty-one-year-old male. There’s a vague connection between the older two, but nothing that I can find provides a direct link between either of them and the young woman.”

  Eva flipped through Nicole’s file first. “This one was sexually assaulted?”

  “Whether it was assault, or voluntary was deemed inconclusive. Nicole had broken several fingernails, but the defensive wounds could’ve occurred while she was being strangled. Micro tears were found on both females, but the vaginal swabs came back clean. The process of decay on Alyssa, the younger female, was too far along to detect defensive wounds.”

  Ben patiently watched as she tossed Nicole’s file aside and opened Matt’s. With her photographic memory, there wouldn’t be a need to repeat the facts of the case. Frowning, she asked, “The M.O. of the three murders was the same?”

  “All involved strangulation with twisted manila rope.” Ben smoothed his fingers over his forehead, working out the throbbing ache that had begun after his interview with Gwen. “Except the older female and the male were burned using an accelerant.”

  “Either their murders were more personal, or the killer is escalating. Any suspects at this point?”

  “The sheriff is trying to pin this on Mia Martin, the male victim’s ex-wife. She recently suffered a mental breakdown due to PTSD from losing her son last year in an automobile accident. It was determined her tire may have been punctured after she’d fought with Matt. She was witnessed threatening the older female shortly before her disappearance, and left a personal item at the victim’s last known location, which also happens to be the location of her son’s death. It’s plausible she was only visiting the site out of respect for him. Besides, the M.E. believes we’re looking at a male unsub over five-ten, weighing somewhere between two ten and two thirty. Mia Martin isn’t good for this.”

  Peering up from the file, she titled her head to one side. “You sound certain of that.”

  “I am. I’ve known her for a good portion of my life. She’s Bella’s sister. We were all close. Her ex-husband too.”

  Eva thumbed through more of the file. “The ex-wife could’ve convinced a friend or hired a hitman to do the job. If she’s mentally unstable—”

  “I swear to you, Eva, there’s no doubt in my mind she didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  With a twinkle lighting her dark eyes, Eva held up a headshot of Mia from the file and smirked. “Your confidence wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that your old friend’s an attractive blonde, would it? I hope you aren’t letting your feelings cloud your instinct on this one.”

  “I won’t deny she’s attractive, but she’s also innocent.” He gave her a sharp look. Pursuing Mia would be a serious waste of their time. “In the six and a half years we’ve worked cases together, have my instincts ever been wrong?”

  “Let me think.” Eva tapped her slender chin mockingly. “There was that time you told me the rib joint in New Jersey was outstanding. You remember, the one that gave us both a brutal case of food poisoning?”

  Snagging the file from her hand, Ben scowled as he stuffed the papers back inside. “I’m telling you, I’m right about this one.”

  “Alright. I’ll give you that. Do you have any working theories?”

  “Tom Tribeau, the husband of the older female victim, has a decent chance of being our unsub. He has a solid alibi, but I don’t think we can completely rule him out at this point. He fits the physical description. He also was friends with Matt Martin, the male victim, who had a history of being unfaithful to his ex-wife with multiple women. The husband could’ve discovered Matt and Nicole were having an affair, and did away with both of them.”

  “What about Alyssa Scriber, the twenty-year-old with no credible ties to the other two victims?”

  “Nicole and Tom’s eldest son just happens to be one of Alyssa’s few classmates, claims he doesn’t remember her. I caught a strange vibe from him.”

  “You’ve interviewed him?”

  “Briefly. Enough to decide there’s something a little off.”

  “What are we waiting for? Let’s go talk to this kid and the father so I can add my two cents to these suspicions of yours.”

  “There’s one other thing I want to run by you. Gwen Martin—Matt and Mia Martin’s teenage daughter—carries a lot of resentment for her father. There’s something about her that raised a red flag. Her mom claims she’s a good kid overall, but she’s been displaying notably odd behaviors as of late, and I think she may be emotionally detached. I witnessed her arguing with her father right before he died—it was ugly.”

  “You think this daughter could somehow be involved?”

  It sickened Ben to think it might be true, that he may possibly have to confront Mia about Gwen in that way, but he couldn’t allow his personal emotions to overrule instinct. “I wouldn’t rule her out.”

  “You can tell me more on the way.” Eva reached for the door handle, glancing at Ben over her shoulder. “Let’s grab some grub before we meet with the Tribeaus. There wasn’t much to choose from between here and the airport, and I’m starving.”